August 2020 – March 2022
Ferant offers tools for asset-based education to schools. With a web platform and professional development program, the company tailors their services to each school’s unique challenges. Treating schools as educational communities of interconnected groups–students, teachers, staff, parents, and administrators–ensures the products evolve in response to the needs of the entire school. Though Ferant targets school and school district administrators, many design and development meetings featured the informal motto, “If students don’t love it, we’re in the junk drawer.”
Product Overivew
All images shown are design mock-ups, not the developed page. Rapid iteration cycles mean these are likely now out-of-date.
Ferant starts by giving students insights into their assets (personal strengths) and values through an identity profiler built on the best personality science available.
Students then use the resulting assets to organize and prioritize their work, a large part of the executive functioning skills we need to succeed throughout our lives. Using Ferant’s task manager, students tie their everyday work to who they are and who they want to be.
A bubble graph gives a clear visualization of how well their tasks support their assets.
Ferant processes student interactions into key performance indicators (KPI), so each student can track their progress through Ferant.
An college and career recommender supported by machine learning also curates opportunities for students to pursue based on their evolving profile.
Insights from these interactions are presented to teachers, counselors, parents, and administrators, so each part of the community learns how better support students.
Ferant’s professional development program focuses on developing executive functioning and asset-based education within schools with these tools in mind.
Brand
As a remote educational technology startup, Ferant needed a simple brand that could be implemented and adjusted easily as the business concept evolved without relying on extensive quality control from the outset. It also had to be approachable and intuitive to everyone from high school students to district administrators. The resulting logo, typography, and color guidelines leave ample room for play and experimentation.
Initial Branding Guidelines
Adjusted Branding Guidelines
We revised the initial color and typography guidelines to account for our observed practices and evolving design needs. This included a more flexible color set and simpler typography. A grid was also added for more consistent application designs.
Contribution
As Co-Founder and Chief Design & Operations Officer working with seven other owners, I worked across the company to ensure a cohesive business structure and product identity.
Design & Development Contributions
- created Ferant’s visual identity
- UI/UX design of the web application (shown above)
- front-end development using Angular.js, SASS, p5.js, d3js, and AWS
- created a pitch deck used for client and research partner acquisition
- led design research efforts throughout development iterations
- developed proto-personas for executive alignment on stakeholder needs
- held internal design workshops to align team members to design thinking
- assisted with improvements in the web app’s systems architecture
- advised on the professional development course structure
Communications, Project Management, and Other Contributions
- organized Slack channel structure and Google Workspace file structure
- maintained guidelines for Slack and Google workspace best practices
- led experimentation with different agile development processes, including Scrum, stand-ups, and Kanban
- led the adoption and implementation of project management processes
- facilitated transitions from Jira to Todoist to Google Workspace for a lean project management that best supported the work of the executive and ownership teams
- edited promotional blogs, marketing copy, grant applications, and internal business documents to ensure consistent and concise communication of company values
- edited remote pitch video, ‘about the company’ video, and early demo video
